As I have said, however, the calendar was heavy, and the judge made a very serious and impressive charge, alluding particularly to the case of the murder of Mr. Roberts. He called the attention of the grand jury particularly to it; recommended them to cast from their minds everything they had heard, and to consider the matter simply on the testimony which supported the charge. He represented their duties as merely preliminary; (in which, indeed, he was right;) but though he never mentioned the name of the accused person, he declared the act to have been most barbarous and horrible; spoke of the deceased as an innocent, honourable, industrious man, whose murder was an awful stain upon the county and the kingdom; and in aggravating the heinousness of the offence, produced, naturally enough, a very unfavourable opinion of the person charged with committing it. While he was speaking in reprobation of the crime with so much eloquence, the minds of the grand jury necessarily connected it with Chandos Winslow as the perpetrator, and of course they returned a true bill, as they would have done had not the evidence been half so strong against him. It is very possible that the grand jury did dismiss from their minds all they had heard before, though that is rarely done, and little to be expected; but they assuredly did not dismiss from their minds the judge's charge, and that was quite sufficient. The speech of his lordship was printed and circulated in the town of S---- that night, and when the solicitor read it, he muttered between his teeth, "He will sum up against the prisoner, that is clear. Our only hope is in the striking of the jury." How horrible that any man should be able to divine, or pretend to divine, how a judge will sum up in a case, the evidence upon which is not yet before him! But, nevertheless, a solicitor of experience is seldom wrong in such matters. Chandos Winslow, too, read the charge, and came to the same conclusion. In the cold and measured phrase, in the well-poised and cautious words, even in the scrupulous abstinence from all allusion to himself, he saw an impression against him, and was sure that it had not only been felt, but communicated. The most deadly poison is that which acts with the least outward signs. He thought over the circumstances deeply, and remained in thought for many hours. He tried to view his own case as if it were not his own. He recalled every fact, and arranged the one in connexion with the other. He separated what he himself knew, but was resolved not to communicate, from that which was before the public eye, and a terrible mass of criminatory circumstances was left unmixed. He looked at the whole steadfastly and resolutely, and he asked himself what he had to oppose to it. The answer was--"Nothing."